


Made To Fit

by abovethesmokestacks



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes deserves a hug, F/M, Fluff, Gen, THE FLUFF TO END ALL FLUFF, and a sweater apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8124295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovethesmokestacks/pseuds/abovethesmokestacks
Summary: There's a package on his bed. Bucky has been standing in front of his bed, staring at the wrapped parcel for nearly ten minutes, as if his quiet presence would intimidate it into revealing what it is, why it’s there, and most importantly: who put it there.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalewrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalewrites/gifts).



> Written for the Marvel September Writing Challenge on tumblr as a gift for the lovely sebbytrash (kalewrites). The prompt was "sweaters" and knitting grandma in training that I am, this happened.

There’s a package on his bed.

Bucky has been standing in front of his bed, staring at the wrapped parcel for nearly ten minutes, as if his quiet presence would intimidate it into revealing what it is, why it’s there, and most importantly: who put it there. Deliveries are usually left at the private access on the first floor, or taken up to the common area for the Avengers to pick up. Their rooms were supposed to be secure, only accessible to the tenant. His first instinct was to check the door for signs of a break-in, but found the locking mechanism to be untouched, the keypad outside his door in pristine condition.

”F.R.I.D.A.Y?” he speaks, not taking his eyes of the package.

” _Yes, mr. Barnes?”_

”Has anyone been in my room?”

The AI is silent for a second. _”There has been no unauthorized access to your quarters, mr. Barnes.”_

”Then why is there a package in my room?”

” _Sir, per the guidelines set for the private floors of the tower, there are no cameras-”_

”…in the rooms,” Bucky finishes grimly, crossing his arms over his chest.

His mind whirls, spitting out scenarios, each as unlikely as the next. It all boils down to the same thing: someone has gotten inside his room without leaving any digital trace. For a second, Bucky considers calling Stark to report the breach and complain about how someone could get past his supposed top-notch security, but decided against it. Until he knew what was in the parcel, he might as well keep the breach on the down low.

The object in question is as plain as it can get; wrapped in plain brown wrapping paper tied with white string, it looks to be something soft, the edges rounded and slightly indented here and there. Cautiously approaching, Bucky strains his ears to listen for any suspicious sound that could come from the package, but hears nothing. A swift poke confirms that it was something altogether soft, his right index finger meeting little resistance. Can’t be anything dangerous, right?

He tentatively reaches for the string, pulling at it to unfurl the neat little bow. As soon as the string is loosened, the paper gives way, and Bucky nudges the parcel over, unfolding it fully. He can only stare when the content is revealed. Far from any threat, any kind of danger. Resting on the wrapping paper is a crisply folded  knitted sweater. Bucky lets out a breath, feeling a bit ashamed for getting so worked up over a sweater. The mystery of how it got into his room still remains, but at the very least it’s not someone trying to kill him.

Bucky gently picks up the sweater, shaking it loosely to unfold it. There’s a cable knit-like pattern starting at the shoulders, snaking down the arms to the cuffs, while the rest of the shirt is plain. The colour, not quite blue, but not quite grey, is soothing to him, and he thumbs the exquisitely soft material between the fingers of his right hand. With a simple toss, he grabs hold of the hem, poking his arms in until they peek out of the cuffs. Another tug and a duck of his head, Bucky pulls the sweater over his head. It feels… good. Looking down at himself, the sweater seems perfect.

”F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

” _Yes, mr. Barnes?”_

”Is there any way to, I don’t know, make the windows… into mirrors?”

Apart from a small bathroom mirror, he doesn’t have a mirror, and what he has is not enough to give him a full size view of himself. He’s loath to look at himself, at the arm, to linger on the man staring back at him in the reflection, but for this, he’ll make an exception.

” _Certainly, mr. Barnes.”_

The floor-to-ceiling windows lining the furthermost wall start to cloud, seamlessly shifting from transparent to opaque to reflective. His room takes shape in the mirrors, and he soon catches himself coming into focus. Instinctively, he bunches the cuffs to cover the hand of his bionic arm, give himself one thing less to fret over. Bucky can’t help but give himself a one-over before settling on the sweater. His hair is getting too long, too unruly again. There are shadows under his eyes that would benefit from more sleep, and he should probably shave before someone calls the authorities to report a Bigfoot sighting in the middle of Manhattan.

He lets out a defeated sigh, casting his eyes downward to the gift. It fits like a glove, hugging to his muscled form but with enough elasticity to become just the right amount of oversized with use. The sleeves are long enough to allow him to hide his hands if he bunches the cuffs, but the cuffs are tight enough that they won’t cause the arms to start hanging like monkey limbs anytime soon. The colour, aside from the soothing quality, also brings out the blue in his eyes, making them shine from behind the curtain of hair hanging in front of them. Bucky smiles softly. He really should get a haircut.

Reaching back, he prods around the neckline for a tag, only to realize there is none. Brows knit together in slight confusion, he sheds the sweather and looks again. No tags, no trace of them having been cut off. Someone made this for him, from scratch. Someone put precious time and effort into crafting a sweater for him, to his physical specs. Someone… who didn’t want to be known, skilled enough to avoid detection. Luckily for him, he’s a master spy.

Or so he thinks.

He wears the sweater throughout the week, anytime he can, carefully analyzing reactions and comments, keeping a running tally over who is most likely the secret knitter. Bucky only succeeds in realizing he knows very little about his team mates, because he keeps faltering between completely dismissing and more or less confirming them. When Steve quirks an eyebrow at him, he’s sure. It’s the punk, who else would knit him a sweater. But then- _how the hell would Steve have learned to knit a sweater?_ When you and Wanda make a comment about his sweater looking nice, he zeroes in on the two of you. You’re girls, you probably know- He has to stop himself right there and give himself a mental smack on the head. It’s a different world from the one he grew up in, he shouldn’t make assumptions like that. The only one he’s fairly sure he can disregard is Tony. There is no love lost between them, and unless this is some new, weird way for the eccentric billionaire to make amends, then Tony Stark is definitely not the mystery knitter.

Seven days in, and Bucky is not closer to solving his little riddle. Sam, Steve and Wanda are out on a mission, Stark has been tied up in business meetings for the past couple of days. It’s been him, you and Nat, and he’s barely seen the two of you either. You always seem to be leaving whenever he sees you, and it feels like he hasn’t spoken to anyone in days. It irks him. He still wears the sweater, reluctant to take it off. He doesn’t strictly need it, the serum ensuring his core temperature adapts to his surroundings, but he likes the sentiment, the feeling of the knitwear against his skin.

He’s still having trouble sleeping, unable to get more than a few hours in every night, so Bucky’s usually the first one up in the morning. Sometimes he waits it out, watching the city slowly come into light through his windows, other times he joins Steve on his morning jog. It’s not always nightmares anymore, but more of a sense of restlessness, as if his body knows it’s been immobile for large periods of time and can’t take more than a few hours at a time of it now. Today he doesn’t feel like running, but he’s too wound up for simply sitting around, so he pulls on a pair of sweats and the sweater, making his way down to the common room for breakfast.

It’s all routine, nothing special. Bucky feels like he should at some point become tired of scrambled eggs, but it hasn’t happened yet. Pushing up the sleeves of the sweater, he sets about preparing, putting a skillet on medium heat, cracking an obscene amount of eggs into a bowl, mixing in cream and salt and pepper, whisking furiously to combine.

”Jeez, Gaston, save some for the rest of us.”

He flinches, sending a spray of whisked egg flying across the counter. Unless there’s a mission or an early meeting, you’re not one for voluntarily crawling out of bed a 6 am. Bucky sets down the bowl to turn around, ready to ask what the hell you’re doing up, but his words hitch in his throat when he sees you. Shuffling along the floor in a pair of fuzzy socks, legs bare and slightly prickled from the cold, a pair of cotton sleep shorts barely visible under a-

”Where did you get that?” Bucky finally manages to choke out, pointing to the very familiar-looking sweater you’re wearing.

There’s a soft smile, something like relief gracing your features when you hastily look down to pinch the arms of the sweater.

”I made it.”

”You… made it.”

”Yeah.”

Silence. His gaze flickers between your sweater and his own. Same general design, same intricate cable pattern over the shoulders and down the arms. The only difference is that yours is a soft, off-white colour, set off beautifully against your complexion.

”So you…”

”Yeah.”

Bucky hesitates, tries to think back to the past week. Should he have suspected you? He can’t come up with anything, no extra smiles just for him, no prodding questions or comments apart from the one where you concurred with Natasha when she said the sweater looked nice.

”Why?” he finally asks, because apart from the identity of the knitter, this is what’s been bugging him all week.

”Why not?” you shoot back, but heave a sigh when Bucky only stares back imploringly. ”Because I thought you needed one, okay? I know, Steve said you don’t really need one, that you’re like him, but you walk around looking so sad sometimes, I just… I wanted you to have something good. So I knit you a dumb sweater.”

”Wait, Steve said?” Bucky furrows his brow, scooting the bowl to the side, planting both hands on the counter.

”Well, yeah. I tried eyeballing your size at first, and that went about as well as you can imagine. So I… brought in the cavalry.”

”Steve?”

You nodded, wrapping your arms around you. ”And Tony. And Nat.”

”You consulted Tony on this one?” Bucky looks down at the sweater, expecting guns and lasers to pop out from the stitches at any second.

”He has access to your medical records. Height, weight, that kind of thing. I didn’t snoop around your file, I just asked if I could get a couple of measurements to know which size to make. Then I used Steve as a general model. You guys have pretty similar build, so he got to be my mannequin for a while. He was very cranky about it.”

”And Nat?” He peers at you as you’re picking at the cuffs, avoiding his gaze, legs crossed so that your fuzzy socks almost meld together.

”How do you think I got the sweater into your room?”

Of course. No one else in the tower but Nat has the technical expertise to hack Stark’s system. Maybe this has been his mistake in all of this, assuming only one person was responsible. Well, ultimately, only one person is, and his heart does a strange little twist in his chest that feels oddly pleasing. He can feel the corners of his mouth tug up into a smile, and he can’t bring himself to try and stop it. You made him a sweater, you took time to make sure it’d fit him and you knit him a freaking sweater. So much of his life has been one cruelty stacked upon another, and there have been so few kindnesses come his way since breaking off from HYDRA. This gesture, this gift, it’s more than he feels he can ever pay you back, but he feels he has to try.

”You want breakfast?”

That gets your attention, your eyes snapping up to meet his in slight confusion. Bucky does his best to look calm and inviting, hoping like hell you’ll stay. You hesitate, and he’s about to go pleading on his knees, when you give a coy nod, inching closer to the counter until your right there in front of him. Bucky smiles and gives a little nod, returning to his scrambled eggs. While they cook, he makes a couple slices of toast, a whole packet of bacon and puts on a big pot of coffee, rummaging through the fridge for juice and fresh fruit. Say what you want about Stark, but he keeps his kitchen well-stocked.

He lets you have first pick, watching carefully as you scoop up eggs, maybe feeling a little self-conscious when he makes his own little mountain, topped with bacon and two slices of toast. You eat in silence, the sound of forks against plates creating a nice little morning symphony. It’s good, he thinks, he could get used to this. Breakfast together. Watching you through his lashes, there is still something slightly guarded about you, as if you’re not entirely convinced by his actions.

”It’s not dumb…” he murmurs, shoveling more scrambled eggs into his mouth.

”What?”

”’S not dumb,” he repeats, mouth full of food, and you can’t help the titter that spill from your lips.

Bucky wants to hear it again, wants to see you smile again.

”The sweater, it’s not dumb. It’s- I- It was a really nice gift. I l- I really like it.”

There it is, another smile. It is soft, barely discernible, but so sincere in the way it reaches your eyes. Bucky almost wants to reach out and touch your face, drag his thumb over your lips, memorize the way it looks and the way it feels under his touch.

”That’s… Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”

He gives a little nod, and for a while you’re back to eating in amicable silence, wordlessly communicating. _Yes, more juice would be good. No, please no more bacon. Save me a piece._ It’s nice and domestic, and by some miracle you both make it through without spilling anything on your sweaters. You help each other clean up, putting things back in the fridge, loading up the dishwasher, and Bucky desperately wants this little moment to go on, and so he blurts out the only thing he can think of.

”So… Who is Gaston?”

The way you stare at him gives him a feeling that he should know, even with his history. Shrugging his shoulders shyly, he waits for your reaction, keeping his fingers crossed it will buy him more time with you.

”You can’t be serious,” you utter, sounding way more scandalized that he thinks is possible.

When he doesn’t contest you, your mouth falls open, and you let out an indignant sound. Before Bucky knows it, you’ve grabbed onto his arm, fingers curling decidedly around the cuff of his sweater, pulling him with you. He could say no, could stop dead in his tracks and not move an inch, but he doesn’t want to. He lets you pull him away from the kitchen to the nearby media room, where he’s all but pushed onto the plush couch while you fiddle with the controls to select a movie.

”A cartoon?” he asks in disbelief when the screen flickers to life.

”Shh,” you hush him, plopping down next to him, warm body so close to his. ”I think you’re really gonna like it.”

Bucky looks down at you. There’s an excitement on your face that he hasn’t really seen before, something that looks almost innocent to his eyes. You’ve curled yourself into his side, and his right arm falls almost naturally around your shoulders, bringing you in even closer. He was right. He’ll never be able to repay you for the sweater. Not when it leads to this.

”Yeah…” he whispers, turning to the screen where a castle has just come into view. ”Yeah, I think so, too.”


End file.
